Nutritional beverages packaged in rectangular brick packs are marketed for the purpose of providing suitable nutritional supplementation to hospital patients, infirm persons, or people who are severely fatigued. Patients or infirm persons can ingest nutritional beverages enterally by inserting a straw into the opening of a brick pack and sucking out the nutritional beverage.
Since the above brick packs are intended for patients and so forth who are strong enough to raise up, patients or children for whom oral ingestion is difficult, for example, cannot consume a nutritional beverage while it is still in a brick pack. Consequently, a physician or nurse must first transfer the nutritional beverage in a brick pack into a trans-nasal administration device and then administer the nutritional beverage to the patient or child from this nasal administration device. Specifically, the nutritional beverage contained in the brick pack is transferred into the bag of a nasal administration device, this bag is hung at a suitable height, a catheter provided to the distal end of a tube extending from the bottom of the pack is inserted through the nostril into the stomach or intestine of the prostrate patient or child, and the nutritional beverage is administered as needed.
However, having to first transfer the nutritional beverage in a brick pack increases the work load entailed by the treatment or care. Also, it is conceivable that the nutritional beverage may be exposed to harmful bacteria or drugs while being transferred from the brick pack to the bag, so this transfer is also undesirable from a hygiene standpoint.